Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Now it's Christie vs. Corzine as Daggett is Discredited

After a one-day polling scarethat showed Corzine with a 20 point lead or something similar (and had the folks at The Corner writing up Christie's post-mortem), it seems as if things have gone back to "Jersey normal": A margin-of-error lead for Chris Christie. Via JWF:With just a week to go in New Jersey’s closely contested race for governor, Republican Chris Christie holds a three-point advantage over incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine.The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in New Jersey show Christie with 46% of the vote and Corzine with 43%. While the margin is little changed from a week ago and the week before, the biggest news may be that support for independent candidate Chris Daggett has dropped four points to seven percent (7%). The number of undecided voters is down to four percent (4%). ...Christie leads by eight points among those who are certain they will show up and vote. A week ago, he was up by five among that group. Christie’s supporters are also less likely to say they might consider voting for someone else. Corzine does better among voters who might not make it to the polls. That's one reason President Obama, former President Bill Clinton and other Democratic Party luminaries are spending time in the Garden State in hopes of encouraging turnout.Daggett got hurt (as did Corzine) when, during a high-profile radio interview, he refused to rule out taking a job in a a second Corzine administration. Between that confession and Christie's new attack ads linking his two opponents, Jersey voters may have come to realize Corzine/Daggett are one and the same, and that Daggett - based upon Corzine's spending history in this election- could even be working for Corzine; by refusing to pull out of an election he can't win in return for splitting the vote, thus handing Corzine a victory, and in return receiving a high-paying job with a nice pension...Hey, sometimes it's good to be jaded. Remember, this is a state where 40+ public officials were hauled off to the hoosegow in one day for a scandal that included, among other things, organ trafficking. So don't tell me it's unrealistic to assume that Daggert and Corzine are in cahoots...[UPDATE 3:50P: Bret Schundler, the GOP nominee for governor of New Jersey in 2001, agrees w/my assessment of Daggert's duplicity in this race]

With Daggert diminished and exposed as a Corzine stooge, the narrowed field of choices helps Christie. Now it's all about getting the folks out to vote. Corzine will do everything in his wealth and power to retain his seat, including declaring a snow day and/or sending fleets of limos to Camden and Newark. Christie has got to get his "base" - middle class New Jersey taxpayers - out next Tuesday, a difficult task in a commuter state.If he can, he wins. If he can't, Corzine wins. Maybe the RNC should take some of that money they are pissing away in NY-23and send it to Jersey to lock up what could be a huge victory with national implications...